Crowley's Personality

Crowley was an unusual and involved individual and his views
changed over the course of the more than fifty years of his writing
career. It is not unusual for him to contradict himself on the same
page. The best way to get acquainted with him as a character is to
read biographies of him and his own books. Unfortunately, there is
more bad biography of Crowley than good. It would be difficult to
deny his many character failings, but the level of vitriolic abuse
leveled at him both during and after his lifetime is remarkable, and
it only continues to grow as bad writers with low standards of truth
and fairness find the sensationalistic aspects of his life -- both
real ones and confabulated ones -- useful for the swelling of their
coffers. Crowley has not been adopted by the literary mainstream, and
so the reader has to rely upon biographers with a religious ax to
grind, whether one is reading a sympathetic biography, a critical
one, or a hatchet job.

Probably the two best sources are Crowley's own "Confessions" and
Israel Regardie's "The Eye in the Triangle". Crowley's failings are
disguised, but without success, in his own account of himself; both
his vices and his virtues shine through clearly. Regardie gives a
critical but sympathetic and engaged account of Crowley's spiritual
career, not turning a blind eye to his flaws or his accomplishments.

In short, though, Crowley was talented, intelligent, capable,
arrogant, judgmental, prejudiced, and not afraid to turn politeness
aside if it would get in the way of a good insult. His talents
extended to ritual and meditative practice, writing, mountain
climbing, sexual athletics,attracting followers, and getting
publicity. His vices went as far as anti-Semitic blood libel, rabid
hostility to Christianity, misogyny, neglect of family, loss of
friends through obnoxiousness, and megalomania. There are marked
similarities between Crowley, MacGregor Mathers (his mentor in the
Golden Dawn), and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (who founded the
Theosophical Society). All three were charming, impressive,
well-read, anger-prone, tough-talking international spiritual
leaders. The current euphemism "strong ego" does not begin to
describe their arrogance. Followers were drawn to them by their
magnetism, energy and talent, but frequently did not know what to
make of their character flaws. In each case there is cause to suspect
mental disorder by the criteria of modern psychology, but now
psychology is also beginning to study a possible link between
creativity and mood disorder, while Szasz and Laing continue to
remind us that inspired wisdom is often socially condemned as
insanity. Simple pathologizing perspectives of such people are
necessarily oversimplifications, but they give so much ammunition to
character assassination that it is inevitable. Crowley, Mathers and
Blavatsky were creators of new religious traditions when traditional
belief in Christianity was on the decline because of new knowledge --
knowledge of the scientific world on one hand, and of Eastern and
pre-Christian religions on the other.

Whether one could accept a flawed character such as Crowley as a
spiritual leader depends on one's model of spirituality. Treating any
of the three as moral exemplars would seem incompatible with their
biographies. If the purpose of religion is to produce moral exemplars
then these religious endeavors have failed. However, if the purpose
of religion is to produce spiritual adventurers then they have
succeeded. A person might have attained to real spiritual
accomplishments yet retain base characteristics of their personality.

Crowley's life was an adventure. When he was not climbing
mountains he was being set upon by thieves in dark alleys, getting
thrown out of countries for his sexual immorality, recklessly
spending away two inherited fortunes, writing fantastic tracts and
books claiming to reveal the mysteries of magic, scandalizing a
culture that had adapted to Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Swinburne, having
torrid affairs, producing theatrical performances, getting reviewed
in the popular press, forming new magical orders and taking over or
helping to break up others, being reviled in headlines as "the
Wickedest Man in the World", and through all this maintaining what
most people would consider a rigorous course of spiritual practice,
journaling, and interpretive writing. His career is reminiscent of
the 19th century adventurer/writer Richard Francis Burton, a man
Crowley admired.

In this main text voice I have tried to be cautious and say only
those things that I was sure could be defended by the evidence.
Biography is a hard subject in which to be objective because it deals
with personalities, and your own relationship with Crowley the dead
writer and spiritual leader will no doubt be unique. For the last
time, your Unreliable Narrator will turn the subject over to the
little voices inside his head.

The Literalist might say this, with the formal closing at the
end: Crowley was the Prophet of the Silver Star, the chosen human
agent of the Secret Chiefs. He was selected because for all his human
frailties he was a man of prodigious strength, intelligence and
discipline, an occultist of many incarnations who was poised to
assume the highest mantle and fit himself for a place in the City of
the Pyramids together with the Prophets and Bodhisattvas of other
religions. The attacks on Crowley's character by yellow journalists
are libelous and fabricated. To understand Crowley you must work his
system, attaining through the power of your own True Will the keys to
the Great Work, and only then judge Crowley from an Initiated
perspective. Any other perspective is unequal to the task of
interpreting an Initiate. Love is the law, love under will.

The Chaotic might say this: I'm tired of Crowley. It seems
like all the people who are into him are into nothing else. I'm
suspicious of his system; way too regimented, way too hierarchical.
Yeah, Crowley made a contribution to magic, but other people have
made better ones in the last fifty years. We've learned a lot in the
20th century about real freedom and sexual liberation, not this
Victorian captain-of-your-own-soul and master-of-the-passions crap.
Crowley was a hung-up jerk in a lot of ways and I'd usually rather
read something that is more relevant to my life today.

The Skeptic might say this: Crowley studies have not been
adopted by academics, with good reason. His work is derivative and
like Blavatsky he could be traced to a handful of main sources. He
does not give credit where credit is due to previous traditions and
he fails to teach the reader about his sources. The intensity of
Crowley's sexism and racism is beyond the standards of his day and
endorsing him could be tantamount to endorsing those prejudices.
Spiritual progress is feeding people, helping those who need it,
participating in the social process to make it more just and humane,
and Crowley has nothing to contribute to that. (Also almost all of
his poetry is terrible; why would anyone want to study it?)

The Mystic might say this: The documents of A.·.
A.·. in Class A are inspired writings from a praeterhuman
Intelligence, a direct and flawless link to the Secret Chiefs. The
transmission of these gems of True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness is
all that one needs to know about the career of To Mega Therion, the
Great Beast, the Magus who spoke through the physical vessel of the
man named Aleister Crowley, himself merely a Student of no great
importance. The course of study of A.·. A.·. is the work
not of Crowley but of The Master Therion and has been issued under
the direct Authority of the Third Order. Who masters it masters the
universe and himself. May you achieve in this life the Knowledge and
Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, that great spiritual Being
assigned as your Guide, who will teach you better than any other.